


potent // markings

by imperiality



Series: Hope . . Have (Works Inspired by Batmorphy) [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, But allusions are aplenty, Canon Compliant, F/M, I think this might be The Lightest one of the series, No Plot/Plotless, No Smut, Super Light Angst, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 02:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperiality/pseuds/imperiality
Summary: Touch, sense, color and beginnings are too powerful for Keith and Allura to holdPoison, force, night and heat cannot dream of being powerful enough for Keith and Allura to hold





	potent // markings

**Author's Note:**

> betas, yes yes rereads to come later
> 
>  I just like, whipped this out after [batmorphy](https://batmorphy.tumblr.com/post/171015780114/r-e-d) posted
> 
> Warnings for... sexual passes? Yall know me, nothing too spicy but it's there and present and thriving

Touch is a lot of things. It’s what lingers on Allura’s shoulders, tender soft and sweet and slow. 

(In her it strikes hot hard and fast.)

Touch is what gives and takes life. Its strike sharper than her whip; its crack louder than the strike across Keith’s… well.

Touch is what grounds. It is her feet on the floor of the castle. It is the outstretch of her hand to a new ally. It is her back to Keith in a new battle. It is their legs over Red’s paw; a longing and a lingering.

Touch is inescapable. 

The expression of love, the pinnacle of pleasure. Touch is. The fervor of hatred, the height of betrayal. Touch is. The bringer of sustenance, the warning of change, the setting of mood. 

It is all things, so much, many things and photographs may communicate much but how much more worth is the warmth of a hand? How much more priceless is the kiss of a dip? 

How much more unspeakable is the touch of lovers (finally) outspoken?

It ends with a beginning.

Keith wraps Allura’s jacket tighter around her shoulders.

His.

(No. Not right now.)

Allura smells and tastes the beginning of something. She sees and feels the end. 

It’s in the sweat of Keith’s hairline. It’s in the savory of his sway. 

It’s in the static of his flyaways. It’s in the shake of his hands.

Keith knows Allura isn’t stupid. She’d never willingly handicap herself for any sake. She spares no grace. She hides no power.

He knows his accumulating saliva is making him swallow too much for her not to notice. He knows the gait of his walk is too cantered for her not to follow.

She’s too sharp for his own good.

- _I thought you liked that about me-_ she’d whisper in his ear.

- _It’s not the only thing-_

So he knew it would come back for him sooner or later.

Allura pulls no punches. Saves no graces. Takes no prisoners _reword_ \- cleans her coffins-

So why is she now?

If she can taste and smell and see and _feel_ Keith all in his misery, why is she making no sound? Why is she saying no word?

She cannot

will not

must not 

look away.

Keith cannot

will not

_wants to_

meet her gaze.

He fixes the collar.

Between the lint fuzz and the protrusion of her collarbone, he gets his answer.

He fixes his stance.

_You’re doing this on purpose._

Does she even blink?

_Doing what?_

Her gaze steels. His face reddens. His everything heats.

_You know what I’m trying to do._

_What you’re trying to say,_ Allura corrects.

Clench, unclench his hands. Tighten, release. He has to expel all his tension so he doesn’t rip the very seam of her jacket.

_Yes! You can’t say yes already and we can both move on?_

Keith’s voice is congested.

Keith’s voice needs to be smothered.

Forgotten.

Allura knows she doesn’t have to use her hands to get him strangled. With a few suggestions, he can get there himself. 

She keeps her hands to her sides.

_Keith, darling._

His hands curl.

_Should I fan your face? You’re looking quite…_

_Quite?_

Still not good. Choked is too mild.

_Quite hot._

His hands lock down. She bears his weight.

 _I’ll manage._ At best. He persists. _You’re not even gonna…_

Let him breathe? Allura thinks not. _Going to what? Your sentence fragments today are atrocious, dear._ His hair rustles. _I need your thoughts finished so I know what you’re thinking._

_I’m getting there._

Spreading is close but not quite.

Red really is Keith’s loveliest shade.

It’s something she can work with.

_You know Keith, I worry for you. If your face gets any more flushed I’m worried you’ll over-heat._

Keith would swear she could feel his palpitating heart through his chest. How can she not hear his pounding pulse against her shoulder, beating through his wrist? He is a lit coal; each word from Allura, a stoking to the fire. 

_You should take better care of yourself, love._

She wraps the jacket around herself.

He swallows his final breath.

His hands finally still.

She has her victory.

Now claiming her delicious triumph, she steps closer into his space, breathing life into his closing throat. She eases him back down. She loosens his restraints.

(No. Not right now.)

_What is it you wanted to say, Keith. I promise not to interrupt you._

Anymore.

The beginning could have wrought so much simplicity if Keith used simple words. If he kept the words few. Three words, in particular. Allura could even do the little surprise-gasp of which he was so fond.

Since when has simplicity ever become them? 

(It was them before Allura learned how to level the field.) Learned how to have a different kind of fun.

Few words will never become Keith, but anything they cannot convey, he relays with touch. He strokes his hands down her sloping shoulders. 

 _This has been yours for a little while, right?_ He pushes out.

 _Perhaps not long enough._ She bundles closer.

_And I… I had this all planned in my head and it was going to be better than this but. Nothing is going the way I wanted but I’m going to get this right. Or maybe not right. I’m going to get this out, either way and then I’m probably going to run away._

She can know the victory-less game of touch, too.

Her fingers are a waxing gibbous, holding the tip of his chin. The tides of his hope swell her way.

_Stay, Keith._

Her glow keeps him tethered.

_I don’t ever want to go._

Her eyes still his hands’ trembling.

_Then don’t._

His waves ever rise. _I can’t stay. But I don’t want to go. I wish there were more I could give you, more to leave behind. There’s so much to say, so much to apologize for. Sometimes it feels like everything is going too fast, but if I’m with you it’s okay._ His cliches ever clip. _Things feel more okay when I’m with you. And I think… I. I think I know you enough by now that you’d die before you let yourself slow down, but I don’t think I’d do much better._

Her glow has to fade before his waters can recede.

If only there was still an Earth to turn on.

 _You don’t have to do better._ She holds his hands, keeping their forces at stalemate. _You need to meet me where I am. And I will meet you where you are._

 _A-and…_ Keith has lost himself in his own seas. He uses the interlocking of their fingers to buoy himself afloat. _And where are you?_

Allura likes playing friendlier games by her own rules. Right now, this one is more immersive. With the touch of her hands and the cut of her gaze and the hush of her breath, she plays Keith right to her.

_I’m wherever you want me to be._

The question is simple.

_Will you…_

It it is more than three words.

_Will you be…_

The sentiment remains.

 _Will you be with me?_ It is not a request.

Allura acquiesces the same. _There’s nowhere else I’d rather be._

She means it. She’d rather be against his back, next to his side in the heat of battle. The throes of pleasure. She’d rather see him hooded and masked than not at all.

If Allura can’t see him, she makes the times apart count.

Keith must go, but he leaves her with things he’d rather be without.

The helmet means too much. Different, naturally, for both parties but too much all the same.

The red helmet is an omen of sorts. A reminder of loss. A sort of taunting, a sort of humiliation. A sort of defeat. It is poisonous for Allura to think this way but she can handle her arsenic. 

The red helmet is a bully of sort. Red is fickle, picky, aloof and unimpressed. She is not a vessel to be used, but vessels make themselves used through her. She reminds Keith of all the things he wants not to be but is always fated to have. 

The red helmet can afford to be left behind. Except when Allura finds it.

She finds the red helmet, and reflects on its state of change. State of loss. Its current wearer won’t make promises he can’t keep, but he’s being tempted beyond his means. She crouches in front of it, laying a tender finger on the top to let herself, for a tender moment, mourn the pass of time.

The time will always be up.

Tender moments are less spared than Allura’s temper. 

(If she has ever kept a prisoner, it would be her confusion. Locked away is it, shackled and awaiting manumitting. Poor thing will never be freed.)

If grace, nor words, nor temper can be spared, then neither can callous. If few words cannot become her, than neither can tenderness.

If only for one reason, she thinks to be like the red helmet: changing its master.

She waits for her lover to return.

_Oh._

She can call him that now, can’t she.

Maybe… maybe a little tender can be graced to her every now and again. 

(With the way her traipsing fingers, too-long gazes; fierce embraces, languid kisses; sweetened words and fervid combat has been manifesting itself? She thinks yes. Yes tender she will wrangle in her battle-bitten hands.)

After too long will she depart from the discarded helmet, leaving it to _think about its misbehaving_ as it remains on the floor. 

After too long, she may rejoin Keith’s side. He will be masked and hooded again, but her war face is the mask the lady chooses to hide behind. His blade glows its supernova violet; her spear pulses its enemies’ red.

Red is all she sees.

 _That’s not true. You see me and you have me._ The fabric beneath Keith’s mouth shifts. _I have you, too._

While enemies encroach, Allura cannot let her muscles unclench nor let her hackles lower. In compromise, she releases the hardening of her face for a moment. _Soon, we’ll have the whole universe to ourselves._ Then the moment’s over.

“Soon” they’ll have the universe to themselves? Keith can’t be expected to wait that long.   He could if he really wanted to. If he put his mind to it. 

Who said he wanted it?

Who said he’s thinking with his right head.

Red is his finger tips when he’s taking the time he wants with her. Red is the color of ties, adornments and ribbons Allura will wear if he asks nicely. Red is his reward and trophy after high release. Keith can’t be expected to _wait_ to spend the time he really wants on her. Soon cannot be soon enough.

Red becomes their new color of compromise.

When he’s done letting unsurmountable passion overtake him, when he’s done with insatiable desire cloud him over, red becomes the color of the light when the fog clears. 

He never knew the stain of make up could illuminate so critically. 

Allura glows over the prospects of new beginnings. The stains (marks, swipes, smudges, _kisses_ ) begin as a joke. 

When Keith quells his passion enough, lets the flame smolder instead of kinder- he takes Allura to spend all the time they do and don’t have with each other.

He writes the note. 

_It’ll be hilarious. Can’t wait to see the look on Lance’s face._

Allura kisses to seal its finality. _The only look on anyone’s face I want to see for the next few hours are yours._

And they divulge.

Allura really looses the sensation of passing time during those nights. Before wakefulness  can stir her out of her reverie, she dwells in the sensation of her dreams. While she slumbers, something else wakes within her.

Visions of red red red either pounce over and on her, or rumble and caress her.

This morning must be the dawning of a slumbering red.

_Slumbering Red._

In her dreams, Red is docile and almost dormant, letting Allura in her armor and Keith clad in his jacket again- ( _I told you, Allura. It’s yours now_ -) sit upon her velvet, feline shoulders. She is both hungry and thirsty. She is both famished and _parched._ Red is for what the lion thirsts and the lady is most assured she is of no lack.

When Red’s mighty roar wakes her up, Allura feels the jolt of resuming time once again. 

And then they resume.

Days are stabilizing. 

Notes are discarded by a solitary, increasingly disgusted face. 

Lipstick fades in minute, minuscule amounts in dark drawer corners.

Nights are made for indulgence. Nights are meant for dreaming. Nights are meant for pleasure.

There is a certain unparalleled pleasure in taking the pleasure of each others’ company beneath the shores of stars.

On nights when the ship passes stars and moons and planets unforgettable, Allura pulls them out to count all the reds they can. Keith is again clad in his ( _her_ ) jacket. She has wrapped them both in a scarf not vivid enough to distract from the colors outside. All around. Just above.

Nights like these sometimes eclipse the pleasure of a different kind of company. When stories start to dwindle, when volume starts to wane, when space between them becomes so tight the only choice next is to fuse?

Keith lets his voice diffuse out. He tints his red to white. 

He feels the solid warmth seared against his arm as a dripping gold. (He’ll much more easily take it than the electric trembling of his hands, warning screaming _bleeding_ yellow.)

Her head rests on his shoulder. His hand rests behind her back. 

The night drives on and its color over them is something he can’t force himself to pay attention to. 

The night drives them closer, silences the rushing of the waves and calms any warring, pulling gravity. 

The night is black.

The words to leave Keith’s mouth are a fluttering silver. 

They are three words in procession.

After hearing, Allura’s sensation of time altogether stops. 

The pink of her cheeks has never glowed brighter, and touch as a beginning restart anew.  

**Author's Note:**

> ((((the passes are like an egg hunt. find them all to get besos from me :') )))


End file.
